I Bet You Didn't See... The Dark Knight Trilogy

Christopher Nolan brings a darker, grittier, nastier aspect to "The Caped Crusader". Christian Bale joins a unique list. He is probably the last good one as well. But first, I must profess to having never read any Batman comics. This may be a factor.

Nolan's grittier, darker Batman Begins (2005) with Batman's origin story being told in flashbacks, as Bruce Wayne learns how to face and battle his fears, retake his empire that his father almost lost and helps save Gotham City from destruction.

Neeson and Bale

Liam Neeson stars as Ra's al Ghul, Wayne's mentor and nemesis, with Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone, the head of the criminal syndicate that has control of Gotham City. Gary Oldman is the class actor he always is as Detective Gordon, with Morgan Freeman as Wayne's tech man, Lucius Fox. Cillian Murphy plays a third villain in the film, Scarecrow (or Dr Crane, running the Arkham asylum). Michael Caine rounds off a stellar cast as the legendary Alfred, Wayne's butler.

Batman Begins is ok. It gives a good, fresher look at the already established trauma in Wayne's life. However, the timings bugged me, with Wayne and Gordon's ages not really making sense compared to later. Neeson is decent as the mentor-turn-villain, although being Liam Neeson, his origins are very unclear - made more unclear thanks to his appearance later.

Heath Ledger's Joker and Bale's Batman

2008 saw Batman return in The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger produced a fantastic performance as Joker, being insane, calculated, and manic. Aaron Eckhart comes in as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, the leading force fighting Gotham's dark underworld before the Joker takes it all from him and breaks him.

It's the best of the three, thanks to Ledger's performance. There is a weird inclusion of Scarecrow for about 5 minutes at the beginning which makes no sense as he is nowhere to be seen for the rest of the film, while Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Wayne's childhood friend Rachel Dawes, replacing Katie Holmes from the first film) seems to yo-yo her loyalty between Wayne and Dent, which makes little sense to me really. What gets me the most is that the Joker doesn't hide his thought process and logic, openly explains this to Batman and many others, but they STILL believe he is telling them the truth at the end when it all goes wrong, leading Batman to flee into self-imposed exile.

Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent before he becomes Two-Face

Hathaway's The Cat

Anne Hathaway (The Cat), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard (Miranda Tate) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Detective Blake) joined the cast in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises. Bane conquers Gotham City, intent on completing the work from the first film using a nuclear device. He defeats Batman, brings the city to its knees and holds it hostage, letting the "oppressed" and the criminals run the city, killing and oppressing the rich and authorities. Many issues here in that timing, again, is off wildly for certain characters as none of it makes any sense relating to Bane and Ra's al Ghul, Marion Cotillard's Miranda character shows no signs of any slip in character or suspicion until the very end, and half of the time Bane's voice is difficult to lock in with.

Tom Hardy as Bale, one of the stand out performance's of the series even if he is hard to hear

While Batman's gear and tech is epic, I found two big issues with this series.

Firstly, the films are basically the same layout. Batman is a hero, he meets the new villain (knowingly or not), he gets beaten by the villain, and then as he is being defeated in another fight he somehow miraculously has a way to win, before having another villain no one is supposed to see coming to deal with.

This then creates the second issue. These films are LONG. And I mean LOOOOOONG. And they only get longer. 140 minutes, 152 minutes and 164 minutes respectively. I found that they dragged. I had to keep breaking up Batman Begins and getting really frustrated at how long was left. Having another villain coming in to the equation just didn't seem needed.

Batman confronts Scarecrow in The Dark Knight

Having these extra villains come in seemed like a way to add these characters without feeling the need to make more films. Now, as mentioned, I have not read the comics so I don't know these characters, so to me there is some logic - the characters are introduced well - but too much went on.

Overall, I think that this is a standard series really. Given that these are Christopher Nolan films, it's a little disappointing to be so formulaic and routine. However, I don't think that they are bad films. They just aren't as epic as they were intended to be.

Batman Begins The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises

Directed by: Christopher Nolan Directed by: Christopher Nolan Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Starring: Christian Bale, Michael

Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Caine, Gary Oldman, Heath Caine, Tom Hardy, Marion

Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Cotillard, Anne Hathaway,

Morgan Freeman Freeman Morgan Freeman

Release Date: 31 May 2005 Release Date: 9 March 2018 Release Date: 9 March 2018

Rating: 5/10 Rating: 5/10 Rating: 4/10

Heath Ledger rocks that creepy smile!